what will the reform that the government is preparing look like?

The government wants to modify the pay slips of civil servants and strengthen the proportion of merit in their remuneration. The unions are reluctant.

The government’s desire is toincrease merit pay for the 5.5 million civil servants. Emmanuel Macron spoke about it during his press conference on January 16. The head of state is working on a bill that he plans to pass quickly, as early as February. His idea is to set up compulsory annual negotiations (NAO) with the unions, every year, as in private companies. An increase envelope would be decided and included in the finance bill.

With this envelope, one-off and optional bonuses, depending on the work carried out, would be granted. Initiatives, particularly in terms of ecological transition, would also be rewarded, which represents a small revolution. The government believes that this will give visibility to agents, to attract candidates, while there is a shortage of more than 50,000 civil servants. Finally, the last advantage according to him, is that it will give more latitude to department heads and local elected officials, who employ agents in the communities, since it is they who will have the hand to distribute these bonuses.

These merit bonuses already exist. Officially, all bonuses and allowances represent, all inclusive, almost a quarter of agents’ remuneration. But the problem is that this figure includes all bonuses, and in particular permanent bonuses, such as, for example, night bonuses for those who work staggered hours, so it is a little misleading.

Unions want collective revaluation

The unions are all against it, unanimously. For them, merit bonuses deteriorate the working atmosphere, which is already tense in the run-up to the Olympic Games. Many civil servants will be requisitioned, banned from summer vacations, without there necessarily being compensation on the pay slip.

However, with inflation, the question of purchasing power remains the priority of agents and they are asking for a collective revaluation of their salary and their index point, it is even a prerequisite for any discussion with the government. To mark their opposition, the unions have already planned to meet on January 24 to see what strategy to adopt and why not set days of action, strikes in public services, in March after the school holidays .